


Expecto Patronum

by Deepdarkwaters



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 07:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12228171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: "He quit Hogwarts after his OWLs," Merlin says through the communication charm linking him to Harry's ear, "but of course he was still underage. He hit the three strikes limit within two weeks, the Ministry dragged him in, that jobsworth Hopkirk charged him with violating the secrecy statute and the underage sorcery decree. His lawyer asked them to take his wand until he came of age rather than give him a custodial sentence."Harry slides the tip of his own wand out of his sleeve holster as subtly as a muggle stage magician performing a sleight of hand trick and murmursMuffliato. "That'll explain why his magical arrests dropped off so suddenly," he says, smiling blandly at the glaring secretary who's vigorously rubbing her finger in her ear and flicking poisonous looks between Harry and a couple of women sitting on the other side of the room, trying to decide which of them to accuse. "Looks like he kept out of trouble once they returned it? Until now, anyway. Assuming the records are complete, this is the first non-muggle arrest since he was sixteen."





	Expecto Patronum

**Author's Note:**

> This accidentally grew (idk why I'm surprised, it literally always happens when I try to write something short) so this is just chapter 1. It will thoroughly deserve its rating later, I PROMISE.

The call for Harry's promised favour comes seventeen years after the day he bound himself to the boy with a spell and walked out of his broken life.

"Galahad, you're glowing like Iron Man," Merlin informs him with a pointed look at his chest. When Harry glances down in disbelief he can barely see the stripes of his tie for the brightness of the light seeping through his shirt. He taps the frame of his glasses with his wand to hurry the transition lenses along, squinting behind the shade until the fuzz in his vision and the light itself both start to fade, then scrambles to tug his tie loose and get the first few buttons open.

The pendant is warm in his hand when he pulls it out to the farthest stretch of its chain to inspect it, warmer than the heat of his skin, and pressing the contact in the very centre of the K fills the air with a static that makes Harry's fillings itch. A ghostly form almost like a Patronus flows liquidly from the pendant, swirling around the room as if it's confused before at last coalescing into a vision of a young man, square-jawed and sullen beneath the brim of his cap, standing in one of the Ministry's unmistakable holding cells with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie. Eggsy Unwin.

The boy flickers and fades, and Harry and Merlin watch the coloured part of the pendant dim back to to its usual sickly pastel pink once it's conveyed its message. It's nothing but an extraordinarily ugly necklace now, there's no need to keep wearing it now it's done the job it was created for all those years ago, but Harry tucks it back inside his shirt anyway and fastens his buttons over it. He's become so used to the subtle weight of it and the way the chain scratches lightly against his skin and chest hair when he moves that he thinks suddenly _not_ wearing it might feel like losing a tooth.

He swallows the rest of his firewhisky and sets the empty glass down on Merlin's desk. "I'm afraid the Lancelot meeting will have to wait."

"Of course," Merlin says, observing him quietly for a moment with a curiously piercing, birdlike look that seems to unnerve everyone who isn't Harry. There's a lot that goes unsaid between them, there always has been - people tease about a low-level natural legilimency born of years spent living in one another's pockets doing this job, to which Harry always wants to say simply _isn't that just called friendship?_ \- and their difficult memories of the last war and the losses they all sustained during it are included in that. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Find me visuals if you can and some background on what he's up to these days, figure out what the bloody hell happened to put him in that cell."

"I'll send them to your glasses." Merlin stands up from his chair and seems not to stop, rising higher and higher even as his body is rapidly shrinking until a split second later he's morphed into his Animagus form, a tiny mottled merlin falcon, and sailed out of the meeting room window on his outstretched wings. Fucking show-off can never just apparate like a normal wizard.

Even for a Kingsman agent, getting through the Ministry bureaucracy isn't an instant thing: Harry has time while sitting on the uncomfortable wooden bench in the Minister's waiting room to look through the information Merlin's relaying to his glasses display, and it's uncomfortable viewing. He scans through multiple hospital reports - St Mungo's for duelling injuries, St Thomas' for broken bones - and both magical and muggle arrests covering everything from drug possession to performing magic underage around his non-magical family, to this newest one, when the Hit Wizards brought him in for casting Arresto Momentum on a muggle police car that was pursuing him and his friends in a stolen Subaru.

"He quit Hogwarts after his OWLs," Merlin says through the communication charm linking him to Harry's ear, "but of course he was still underage. He hit the three strikes limit within two weeks, the Ministry dragged him in, that jobsworth Hopkirk charged him with violating the secrecy statute and the underage sorcery decree. His lawyer asked them to take his wand until he came of age rather than give him a custodial sentence."

Harry slides the tip of his own wand out of his sleeve holster as subtly as a muggle stage magician performing a sleight of hand trick and murmurs _Muffliato_. "That'll explain why his magical arrests dropped off so suddenly," he says, smiling blandly at the glaring secretary who's vigorously rubbing her finger in her ear and flicking poisonous looks between Harry and a couple of women sitting on the other side of the room, trying to decide which of them to accuse. "Looks like he kept out of trouble once they returned it? Until now, anyway. Assuming the records are complete, this is the first non-muggle arrest since he was sixteen."

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Merlin says grimly. Another document appears like a spreading inkblot on Harry's glasses view. "His wand was 'damaged' in storage." Harry can almost hear the sarcastic finger gestures around _damaged_ ; Merlin's never had the highest opinion of the Ministry's appreciation for magical technology and tools ever since some bumbling idiot in the Aurors' department destroyed his first glasses prototype by tucking them in a back pocket and accidentally sitting on them. "They offered to replace it, but he never turned up the compensation meeting, and nobody bothered to chase him. Presumably they thought he'd replaced it himself, or maybe he'd got a taste for living as a muggle. Either way, as long as he stayed off the Trace transgressions they had no need to keep an eye on him."

"Mr Hart," the secretary yells over the lingering buzzing in her ears, "the Minister will see you now."

"Thank you, madam," Harry says politely, and goes to order Shacklebolt to sign Eggsy's release form.

* * *

Eggsy doesn't seem at all pleased to have been rescued. The confusion is understandable, but he's so bloody _prickly_.

"A little gratitude would be nice," Harry comments. Eggsy narrows his eyes slightly, and it's _so much_ like Lee's look of suspicion on the day Harry wandered in to observe a training exercise and offered him a shot at something that sounded even more intriguing than being an Auror. "My name is Harry Hart, and I gave you that medal. Your father saved my life."

"Can't the reminiscing session wait?" Merlin says in his ear. "You think I've got nothing better to do than wait around for you to feel like completing this urgent briefing?"

 _Go for a fly_ , Harry signs in front of his glasses as he's shooing Eggsy ahead of him towards the muggle pub down the road. _Go and eat a nice fat tasty mouse. You get grumpy when you're cooped up for too long_.

"So how'd you know my dad?" Eggsy asks, turning to look him up and down and walking backwards the last few steps to the pub doorway. "You can't've grown up with him, you're too old."

Harry hears Merlin cackling like a hag in his ear before closing the connection.

"Was it," Eggsy starts, then hesitates, looking around the empty pub for anyone close enough to overhear. "Did you work with him?"

"I'd murder someone for a Blishen's single malt firewhisky," Harry says instead of an answer, surveying the choice of spirits behind the bar, "and I'd know how to get away with it, too." Beside him, he hears Eggsy's startled sucked-in breath at the confirmation that no, this isn't a mysterious change of heart by the authorities but something very, very unexpected. "A Guinness is almost as good while we're here, I suppose. And yourself?"

"Strongbow," Eggsy says faintly. He nods his head at a table by the window once their pints are poured and sits there, not even sipping from his glass, just watching Harry with fascination like he's something mildly dangerous in the zoo. "So," he starts, then he drops his voice even lower, looking around the pub even though there's nobody there but the barman. "You was an Auror?"

"Not quite," Harry says, although - like Lee - he did start out as one. "Sorry, Eggsy - classified."

Eggsy looks suitably impressed by that. Harry resolves to have a severe word with himself later at how gratifying he finds it.

"But my dad saved your life, yeah?"

Technically this part's classified as well, but not much about the Second War is still a secret any more. There was so much memory modification needed and simply not enough Obliviators to go around, not when magical and muggle people were being murdered across the country and genocide was beginning to look like the inescapable future instead of a repulsive threat. Lee died in a crowd of strangers at a triage station who were too panicked at the commotion to truly grasp how much had been saved by the young man shoving Harry aside and throwing himself on the disguised Death Eater just as her wand was obeying her scream of _Confringo_. A million times since 1997 Harry's found his thoughts creeping in their quiet moments back to the calculations he's done over and over in his head: the number of people who are alive now but wouldn't be if Lee hadn't been so fast and so brave; the children who would never have been born, who are in Hogwarts now learning about the war in their history classes; the mediwizards who didn't die that day and have gone on to save thousands of lives over these seventeen years they almost didn't have.

But that's a lot to dump on the boy all at once, so Harry says, "The day your father died, I missed something, and if it weren't for his courage my mistake would have cost the lives of every person present. So I owe him. Your father was a brave man, a good man"--and really he shouldn't have antagonised Merlin, because Merlin is the cricket Harry desperately needs on his shoulder to talk him out of mouthing off every time he accidentally falls into his stride--"and having read your files, I'd think he'd be bitterly disappointed in the choices you've made."

Eggsy reacts immediately, his delighted smile at getting to hear about his father twisting into shocked anger. "You can't talk to me like that!"

"Huge IQ," Harry goes on, already anticipating the calm-but-irritated lecture he's going to get about his temper when Merlin finds out but unable to help himself now he's started. "Great performance in Hogwarts, then it all went tits up. Drugs, petty crime, never had a job--"

"You think there's a lot of jobs going around here, do you?" Eggsy interrupts, outrage hardening his eyes. Overhead, the electric lights flicker like there's a storm outside, but there's no rain hitting the windows beside them. "For some dickhead who ain't got a single GCSE cos Hogwarts don't think muggle qualifications matter? Or for someone who ain't even got a wand no more, never mind NEWTs."

"Doesn't explain why you gave up your hobbies. First prize in the regional under tens' Shuntbumps cup two years in a row. Your coach had you pegged as professional Quidditch material, you certainly had the flying skills down early enough."

"Yeah, well, when you grow up round someone like my stepdad you pick up new hobbies pretty quick. You know, ones that don't involve fucking _magic_."

"Of course, always someone else's fault. Who's to blame you for quitting school as soon as you were able? You were Hufflepuff's most successful Quidditch captain in years, about to start the NEWTs that would get you into Auror training, doing brilliantly, but you gave up."

"Because my mum went mental, banging on about losing me as well as my dad! Didn't want me being curse fodder for snobs like you, judging mudbloods like me from your ivory towers--"

"Eggsy," Harry says sharply, "I don't like that word."

"I don't give a fuck what you like! Bringing me in here just to fucking slag me off--"

"Your father was a wizard. Both of my parents were muggles. I believe that means I get the final say in whether we use it in this conversation, and I say no."

For a moment Eggsy looks shamefaced, on the brink of an apology that might just defuse this tension Harry's gone and caused - then the door of the pub opens, and the half a dozen young men who come in don't look at all thrilled to see Eggsy sitting there.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" the ringleader yells.

Harry will claim afterwards that he can't remember who started it, Merlin will stare him down coolly and suggest two weeks off active duty to have his brain checked over for thirty-plus years of accumulated curse damage, and everyone will move on. It'll be too much effort to explain to someone who wasn't there why the snide jab about Eggsy working at the dodgy end of Smith Street struck so hard: the absolute rudeness of it was one thing, ugly but bearable; the resigned look of hurt on Eggsy's face, as though he'd heard this nonsense so many times that he'd lost the drive to retaliate, was about a thousand steps too far. Added to the simmering fury of learning about James' death that morning, which hadn't yet been granted an outlet...

Harry can't use his wand but he doesn't need to anyway; he's found over the years that pureblood wizards rarely consider how bloody _satisfying_ a good physical brawl can be, but having been raised as a muggle for the first eleven years of his life he's perfectly capable of teaching a band of revolting oiks an important lesson without using magic. Teeth fly and rattle across the bar, blood sprays from crunched noses, Harry whirls and strikes and kicks like some hero in a violent muggle film and one by one the enemy start to fall onto the sticky floor, unconscious and unvictorious.

Then the ringleader pulls a gun from his waistband and Harry reacts to it just a second too slowly, certain with a kind of ridiculous clarity that he's gone and buggered this one up by showing off just as extravagantly about his fistfight skills as Merlin does about his Animagus status - but the gun flies out of his hand as if someone's summoned it and skitters across the table where Eggsy's still sitting, wide-eyed, coming to a stop with a gentle _clink_ against Harry's half-empty Guinness glass.

Harry shoots a stun dart from the tip of his umbrella into the gunman's neck, and another from his watch into the barman's. Then he takes his seat, calmly slides the gun away from his glass, and finishes his drink.

Eggsy's staring at him, silent.

"Did you _accio_ that gun?" Harry asks, as conversationally as he might ask a stranger for the time to cover up the queasy bubble of excitement in his stomach.

"Uh." Eggsy looks like he might be considering lying, then he glances at the unconscious bodies sprawled all over the floor and thinks better of it. "Yeah."

"Did you also say earlier that you didn't have a wand?"

Eggsy's cheek twitches where he's clenching his jaw. "Yeah. It slipped out. I didn't think you'd noticed cos you were too busy bollocking me."

"Would you transfigure this into something less ugly for me?" Harry pushes the gun across the table towards Eggsy, who sits up dead straight in his seat and looks slightly sick before apparently deciding to get it over with. He mumbles an incantation under his breath and the gun trembles on the table a few times before bursting into a huge, brilliant Michaelmas daisy.

"Seemed at the time like getting my wand confiscated was a _good_ thing," Eggsy says in a low, defeated voice. "Cut off the last link, start over. Maybe stop my wanker stepdad treating my mum like shit for having this freak son. You think anyone gave a fuck them three times I got done for underage sorcery was cos I was fixing my mum's broken arm and her broken nose? And casting Colloportus on the front door cos Dean was outside yelling he was gonna throw me off the balcony cos he thought I short changed him on a drug deal he made me do? The Ministry's a bunch of fucking pencil pushers following rules, they don't understand real life. And there's no way they think a pleb like me's gonna be any good at wandless magic, so they think it's alright to just have my wand off me and let me rot. Another useless prick out their hair. Joke's on them, innit, I can still mend my mum's black eyes without it." He looks up finally, staring unhappily at Harry, and raises his hands either side of his head in a miserable mockery of surrender. "So you gonna take me back in or what?"

"Of course not. Casting spells at muggles is the crime, not wandless magic itself, and I've already got the charge dropped for that. You're not in trouble." Harry removes his own wand from his sleeve holster and places it on the table between them. "Blackthorn, thirteen inches," he says. "Dragon heartstring core. What was yours?"

Eggsy blinks, and very slowly he lowers his arms. However accomplished he is at wandless magic - much, much more so than Harry, who can just about manage to turn the lights off on the nights he only realises he left his wand in the bathroom when he's already comfortable in bed - he's still looking desperately hungry about a wand being so close to his reach, like he's itching to touch it. "Eleven inch cedar," he says. Then a faint little smile creeps onto his mouth, crooked and lovely. "Dragon heartstring core."

Harry takes one of the knives from the pint glass full of cutlery on the table, and transfigures it into an eleven inch cedar wand. Eggsy, looking startled, takes it from him when Harry offers him the handle end.

"I know it can't replace the one you lost. And we can certainly go and buy you a new, real wand if you'd like one. But in my line of work, this is the sort of gift we'd give our left eye for. If you can continue to train it further without letting anybody know it's there..."

Falling silent, Harry picks up the flower that used to be a gun and twirls it between his fingers, watching Eggsy study his new prop wand.

"You really ain't with the Aurors, are you?" he says at last, fascinated, scrutinising Harry's face as though all his secrets might be written in his eyes. "You're something, I dunno. Different. Weirder. Maybe better."

"An independent international intelligence agency," Harry tells him - and he feels in his stomach again the same quivering, roiling sense of excitement he'd felt as an Auror training in the midst of the First War, pulled aside from his contemporaries and given a magnificent, terrifying opportunity with these very same words. "We operate at the highest level of discretion, above the politics and bureaucracy that undermine the integrity of Ministry-run spy organisations."

"Highest level of discretion my fucking arsehole," Eggsy defies, gesturing at the room full of unconscious muggles.

"They deserved every bit." Eggsy can't object to that statement at least. "We're recruiting candidates to try out for a place that's just become available."

"The same job my dad was training for."

"Yes. Interested?"

His smile is completely transforming his face now, notching deep dimples either side of his mouth and lighting up his pretty green eyes in a way that Harry suspects they haven't done in a very long time. "Dean's literally gonna kill me when word gets back to him about"--Eggsy gestures at the fight carnage again--"all _this_. You think I've got anything to lose?"

In moment of uncontrollable whimsy, Harry leans across the table and tucks the daisy he's holding behind Eggsy's ear, right where the glasses will sit if he wins his place at the table.

"Then let's get started."

**Author's Note:**

> Harry's wand: "Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts (although it is undeniable that those who do so will enjoy the blackthorn wand’s prodigious power); one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban. It is a curious feature of the blackthorn bush, which sports wicked thorns, that it produces its sweetest berries after the hardest frosts, and the wands made from this wood appear to need to pass through danger or hardship with their owners to become truly bonded. Given this condition, the blackthorn wand will become as loyal and faithful a servant as one could wish."
> 
> Eggsy's wand: "Whenever I meet one who carries a cedar wand, I find strength of character and unusual loyalty. My father, Gervaise Ollivander, used always to say, 'you will never fool the cedar carrier', and I agree: the cedar wand finds its perfect home where there is perspicacity and perception. I would go further than my father, however, in saying that I have never yet met the owner of a cedar wand whom I would care to cross, especially if harm is done to those of whom they are fond. The witch or wizard who is well-matched with cedar carries the potential to be a frightening adversary, which often comes as a shock to those who have thoughtlessly challenged them."
> 
> Merlin's wand: "The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and perhaps mysterious. Pine wands enjoy being used creatively, and unlike some others, will adapt unprotestingly to new methods and spells. Many wandmakers insist that pine wands are able to detect, and perform best for, owners who are destined for long lives, and I can confirm this in as much as I have never personally known the master of a pine wand to die young. The pine wand is one of those that is most sensitive to non-verbal magic."
> 
> https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods


End file.
